A website that lists the victims of Righthaven LLC 'shakedown' lawsuits that are causing irreparable harm to bloggers and advocacy websites.

Righthaven LLC -- a bottom feeding legal outfit -- has teamed up with the Las Vegas Review-Journal and Denver Post to sue mom and pop websites, advocacy and public interest groups and forum board operators for copyright infringement. The strategy of Righthaven is to sue thousands of these website owners, who are primarily unfunded and will be forced to settle out of court.

To date Righthaven has been ordered to pay $323,138 in legal fees and sanctions.

Monday, May 7, 2012

UPDATE 05/07/12: Apparently, there were no bidders in the second eBay auction either. The latest auction ended Saturday. In an article published Monday by VEGAS INC, attorney Marc Randazza, whose firm is trying to recover legal fees after defeating a Righthaven lawsuit on behalf of a client, said: "It would seem that everything that Righthaven and its parade of idiots touch turns to garbage."

Righthaven copyright auctions to re-launch today
Incline Village, NV, USA – May 03, 2012
Seventeen Righthaven copyrights are being auctioned off on eBay starting 8:00 a.m. PDT today and ending at approximately 8:00 p.m. PDT on Saturday May 5, 2012. This is the third auction of Righthaven property to satisfy court judgments against the Las Vegas company. The RIGHTHAVEN service mark was sold for $1025.00 in an auction that closed this morning. The auctions are being conducted by the court-appointed receiver for Righthaven, Lara Pearson, Esq., operating under the eBay seller name courtappointedreceiver. The auction listings are as follows:

4 comments:

April Brown, CEO, Charity Auction World, is embroiled in a messy legal battle with Linda Ellis, Author of The Dash poem and the Live Your Dash lifestyle. Brown shared the Dash poem in a blog with author attribution in 2011 and was immediately caught in an Internet copyright trolling scheme implemented by John W. Jolin, Copyright Infringement Representative for Linda Ellis. Brown refuses to pay up.

Steve Gibson, CEO of Righthaven, made famous for developing IP trolling software, was one of the first legal minds to go after innocent infringers with relentless threats of legal action for posting snippets and entire articles in the same manner as Brown and others. The copyright act allows up to $150,000 per infringement. “We believe there to be millions, if not billions, of infringements out there,” claimed Gibson in an interview with WIRED. Gibson was able to settle more than a hundred cases out of court for a few thousand dollars each using threats and intimidation. As with Righthaven, Jolin requires innocent infringers to sign a confidentiality agreement—successfully keeping a lid on the scheme by silencing victims.

Linda Ellis may have the most lucrative copyright trolling scheme to date. Simply by sending an email to hundreds of non-profits, funeral homes, schools, hospitals and private individuals, Jolins’ letters have collected hundreds of thousands of dollars maybe millions over the last decade. If this scheme is allowed to continue, millions more dollars of charitable contributions will be gobbled up along with the savings of blogging moms and small business owners. It is estimated that the Dash poem is posted on more than 10 million private and public non-profit and business sites worldwide.

Brown is a charity auctioneer and works with non-profits throughout the United States. She is the founding director of Whisker City, a feline rescue organization located in Seattle, Washington. Brown also is developing a job program for the indigenous people who live in the village of Amed, Bali, Indonesia. She is one busy senior citizen but feels it is important to expose this injustice. “It makes me sick to think that I could bury my mother tomorrow, put the Dash poem in a memorial, and then be forced to give my inheritance to Linda Ellis,” said Brown. “Thousands of people are posting this viral poem every day in what they believe is a loving act. I’m invigorated by their stories and I intend to stay in this fight until this scheme is further reviewed by the courts.”

Brown is gathering support and says that people are sharing their stories with her daily. “I’ve sat through many sad late night phone calls with some of the best people on earth.” Brown said.

Brown has created her own warning she hopes will soon go viral. “It is too late for thousands of innocent infringers who succumbed to fear and intimidation. My goal is to remove the Dash Poem from millions of sites before the copyright troll catches the infringer and ruins another life. You can find the “BEWARE DON’T SHARE the Dash Virus Poem” logo and Warning at www.aprilbrown.com under Copyright Infringement.

Thank you April, I am so glad you are warning people! All of the victims of her extortion demands who have innocently shared her poem because they thought it meant something, only to be called thieves and harassed for money need to come forward and be heard! Spread the word and save your friends and loved ones grief! BEWARE! DO NOT SHARE THE DASH POEM!

Ms. Brown took what wasn't hers without authorization to use on her business web site and now is striking back at the author with threats and profanity. The author was simply protecting her valuable products and her company from unauthorized usage of her works.